Screen

An interesting recent demonstration of the logic "the condition is urgent, therefore the treatment is useful" is the proposal of screening for drug abuse in secondary school children.

(I am quite prepared to put it up as a counter-example of evidence-based medicine for our students. For those who are not familiar with the considerations on what condition worth screening, please read the WHO criteria described by Wilson and Junger in 1968 - or just search the item in Google.)

In fact, it is exceedingly impressive to see our senior government officials coming out and declare, "The problem of drug abuse is huge amongst school children. We cannot afford delaying this program."

But, it is even more horrifying when there seems no one - not even those die-hard opposers against screening - to point out the flaw in such a logic.

PS. I am not always against mass campaign of this kind, even if the intervention may not be effective. For example, during the period of SARS, it must have been a genius to suggest everyone cleansing their home with Clorox. Of course it doesn't help - the virus does not spread by fomite. But it does relieve anxiety to the public, which was actually a major problem.

Alas, few people know what they want to do, but even fewer know what they are actually doing.